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Senior Trump officials to get $10k raise amid shutdown: report

Senior political appointees chosen by the president including Cabinet officials, top administrators and the vice president will reportedly see their pay raise by around $10,000 per year on Saturday amid the ongoing government shutdown.

The Washington Post reported that accumulated pay raises for top officials affected by a longstanding Washington pay freeze will go into effect on Saturday without legislation to stop them, citing documents from the Office of Personnel Management and federal pay experts.

The failure to pass legislation through Congress to fund a handful of government agencies allowed an existing pay freeze to lapse, leading to the pay increases, according to the Post.

The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Hill. The Post noted it had not received a comment on Friday regarding its report.

As a result, Vice President Pence's salary is set to rise to $243,500 from its current rate of $230,700 per year, while Cabinet secretaries will see their compensation rise to $210,700 from $199,700 per year.

“At a time when more than 800,000 federal employees aren’t getting paid, it is absolutely outrageous that the Trump administration would even consider taking advantage of the shutdown to dole out huge raises to the vice president and its political appointees,” she told the Post.

“It looks like Trump has protected his own appointees, and everyone else gets screwed,” added Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) in an interview with the Post.

Trump's battle over funding for his plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border dragged the shutdown fight into its 14th day on Friday as about one-fourth of the federal government remains shut down by a lack of funding.

The president is set to meet with congressional leaders again Friday, his first meeting with Democrats since the party assumed the House majority on Thursday.